To Destinations Unknown

In a game that served mostly as a series of reminders and what ifs, the Cleveland Browns beat a mistake-prone Oakland Raiders on Sunday, 23-9, to notch their third straight victory in a season ending sprint to destinations unknown.

The reminders came in the form of the two starting quarterbacks, Charlie Frye for the Oakland Raiders and Derek Anderson for the Cleveland Browns. The “what ifs” came in the form of what if the Browns had made better use of Jerome Harrison and Josh Cribbs all season and had benched right guard John St. Clair and defensive back Brandon McDonald earlier in the year.

The last time the Browns and their fans saw Frye, he was packing his bags after a little more than a quarter of play into the Browns’ opening season loss in 2007 to the Pittsburgh Steelers. As for the man that replaced Frye that season, Derek Anderson, the last time he was spotted it was on his back and reeling from one ineffective performance after another before being permanently benched several games ago in favor of Brady Quinn.

As it turned out, neither player ended up being the story of the game. Frye showed his game hasn’t changed much, some fire too much ice, while Anderson was mostly doing his level best to get out of the way of both Cribbs and Harrison while limiting his own mistakes. It mostly worked. But the real story of the game was the undisciplined mess that the Oakland Raiders still are after all these years, though without nearly enough good players to overcome that tendency.

The Raiders probably relished the trip to Cleveland over the holidays about as much as kids relish the end of Christmas vacation. But that still doesn’t excuse 13 penalties for 126 yards, many of which came at critical points of drives that forced field goals when touchdowns were needed, and 3 Frye interceptions, the first of which led to Cleveland’s first touchdown before the game was even 2 minutes old and the last of which snuffed out the Raiders’ last scoring attempt.

On Frye’s first pass of the game, he made an ill-conceived decision that landed in the hands of linebacker David Bowens, who returned it 15 yards to the Oakland 17-yard line. Two plays later, Harrison ran the remaining 17-yards untouched for the touchdown that helped give the Browns a 7-0 lead that they ended up never relinquishing.

But it was a Raiders meltdown of classic proportions just before the end of the first half that ultimately propelled the Raiders back to Oakland with the loss.

It started innocently enough for the Raiders. After the Browns were able to pin the Raiders back to their own 1-yard line thanks to handy teamwork by Josh Cribbs and Brandon McDonald on a Reggie Hodges punt, the Raiders were able to regain field position thanks to a booming Shane Lechler punt and two Browns penalties that put the ball on the Browns own 7-yard line.

Pinned back and heading further backward, the Raiders then emptied their frustration bucket all over themselves when a little discipline would likely have kept the score close.

First it was Richard Seymour igniting a scuffle with an unsportsmanlike penalty that was offset by a penalty on Rex Hadnot somewhere inside the pile. But Seymour, not content with having to share the spotlight with Hadnot, let referee Jeff Triplett know about it and was flagged for another unsportsmanlike penalty before the Browns were able to snap the ball. It took the ball to the Cleveland 40-yard line. That was followed a few plays later by another unsportsmanlike penalty, this time on cornerback Stanford Routt for a head butt that was deemed so flagrant that Routt was ejected.

That put the ball on the Oakland 27-yard line. Harrison, still showing great spring in his legs after last week’s record-breaking effort, ran 8 yards. That set up a 19-yard touchdown throw from Anderson to Mohammad Massaquoi. Phil Dawson added the extra point and it gave the Browns a 17-6 lead with just seconds remaining in the half.

The Browns defense couldn’t quite hold the Raiders in those waning seconds. After a few quick passes by Frye moved the ball to the Cleveland 43-yard line, Janikowski hit an amazing 61-yard field goal that closed the gap to 17-9. It didn’t end up giving the Raiders much of a lift and, ultimately, was just an interesting highlight in a highly imperfect game.

The Browns meanwhile were able to push their late first half score to a 20-9 lead with a 33-yard Dawson field goal to open the second half. The Raiders, unwilling to kick deep to Cribbs, instead put the ball in Harrison’s hands and all he did was return it 39 yards to the Oakland 43-yard line. The Browns then broke out their wildcat formation with Cribbs hitting on a 21-yard run that nearly went for a touchdown. But the Raiders defense then stiffened forcing the Browns to settle for the Dawson field goal.

The Raiders offense, however, was still a mess. It couldn’t answer the Browns’ field goal after another drive was snuffed out not so much by the Browns’ defense but another series of penalties including a holding call and an intentional grounding penalty on Frye.

The Browns, not exactly an artistic success themselves, had a chance to push the lead out even further but had a Harrison touchdown nullified on an illegal block by tight end Michael Gaines and then two plays later Harrison fumbled at the Oakland 5-yard line. Oakland linebacker Kirk Morrison recovered, but the Raiders couldn’t find a way to turn it into points of their own.

The Raiders seemed on the verge of getting back in the game as the fourth quarter began, with Frye moving the ball effectively through the air. But on 3rd and 9 from the Cleveland 24-yard line, Frye’s sideline pass was intercepted by McDonald at the 14-yard line. McDonald ran it back 39 yards to the Oakland 47 yard line. That led to a 34-yard Dawson field goal and a 23-9 lead. It was Dawson’s third field goal of the day, the other two covering 42 and 33 yards, respectively.

Then Raiders’ tried to make a game out of it late and may have but for, predictably, a series of mistakes.

Taking over with over 8 minutes remaining and the ball at his own 6-yard line, Frye hit a series of passes that quickly put the ball in Cleveland territory. On 2nd and 10 from the Cleveland 26 yard line, Browns’ defensive back Hank Poteat was then flagged for interference in the end zone on a pass that was intercepted by safety Abe Elam. It put the ball at the 2 yard line. Frye then threw four straight incompletions. Within those four passes though was an interception by Eric Wright that was overturned and an offensive pass interference penalty on Chaz Schilens on 4th down that gave the Browns the ball with a little over 4 minutes to play.

The Browns were not able to get a first down and were forced to punt as the Raiders burned all of their time outs. Hodges punt put the ball at the Oakland 46-yard line. Frye then moved the Raiders quickly into scoring position again but his third interception, this one to Wright, effectively ended the game.

Those final two Raiders drives were a theme as they brilliantly illustrated the Raiders squandering of good opportunities to not just close the gap but perhaps take the lead, only to see drives stymied by mistakes, usually penalties.

For example, the Raiders’ first points came courtesy of a Sebastian Janikowski 45-yard field goal in the first quarter but it could have, maybe should have been more. With Frye finding his rhythm after the early interception, he was able to put together a nice drive that got the ball down to the Cleveland 16-yard line. But a holding penalty on right tackle Cornell Green killed the drive.

On the Raiders’ next drive, which started from the 50-yard line, a false start penalty on 3rd and 3 on tackle Chris Morris made it 3rd and long and led to a Shane Lechler punt.

Then, after the Browns second straight series in the second quarter that finished further from the end zone than when it started forced a put from Hodges out of his end zone, his punt traveled only to the Cleveland 45-yard line and then a penalty on McDonald for running into the returner put the ball at the Cleveland 30-yard line. But the Raiders couldn’t turn it into anything more than a 34-yard Janikowski field goal and a 10-6 deficit after Frye was sacked by Mike Adams on 3rd and 3 from the Cleveland 10-yard line.

As it was last week, the Browns used the game to further solidify a running game that has been taking shape since Jamal Lewis went down for the season. The Browns were again wildly out of balance offensively, running it 45 times against just 17 pass attempts. Harrison once again led the way with 148 yards rushing on 39 carries. Anderson was just 8-17 with one touchdown and no interceptions.

It wasn’t exactly the audition Anderson probably envisioned for new president Mike Holmgren and probably did little to ensure he’ll be back next season. Though Anderson wasn’t asked to do much, he still showed amazingly bad touch on short passes. To his credit, though, he didn’t turn the ball over, though that was more a case of luck in the form of the Raiders defenders, naturally, twice dropping potential interceptions.

For the Browns, they now stand at 4-11 heading into next week’s game against Jacksonville. A victory gives them 5 wins, which would be the first visible sign of progress over last season. But there are still many questions facing Holmgren, not the least of which starts with the quarterback slot and pushes outward from there. Where this thing is headed now is anyone’s guess.

Still, in a season that has been mostly high drama and low execution, a 3-game winning streak has proven to be a nice respite. Sunday’s game, with mistakes flying everywhere, ran nearly 3 ½ hours and yet seemed half as long as most other Browns’ games this season.

A Tale of Two Emotions

If Browns quarterback Derek Anderson had one of the more down and then up days of his young life on Friday, then the Browns other quarterback, Brady Quinn, had one of the more up and then down days of his young life at about roughly the same time.

As most know by now, when the NFL’s version of free agency officially opened for business at 12:01 a.m. Friday morning, Anderson was slated for a one-year tender offer as a restricted free agent. His agents and Browns general manager Phil Savage were unable to agree, prior to the deadline, on the amount of guaranteed money that would be coming Anderson’s way over the next three years.

Savage then prepped the media by announcing that negotiations had failed and that the Browns would now turn their attention to developing Quinn more quickly, given Anderson’s status. It wasn’t entirely clear if Savage felt that Anderson might find another team to bite at a longer term contract and thus part with a first and third round pick in the process, but he had clearly resigned himself to that possibility, even discussing the extra salary cap room he now had and what he’d do with it.

But something else Savage said in that initial press conference was probably much more meaningful to the events that transpired just a few hours later. When asked if the Browns would consider trading Anderson for something less than a first and third round pick as a way of facilitating his exit, Savage, a straight and impassioned shooter if ever there was one, made it clear he would not. This had two intended effects: it sent a message to other teams not to even bother with any such proposals and it greatly limited the maneuverability of Anderson’s agents.

It’s quite possible, indeed pretty likely, that Anderson’s agents could have worked a longer term deal with potentially more guaranteed money from another team, but not at the additional price of a first and third round pick to the Browns. Savage’s other moves on Friday notwithstanding, most general managers value draft picks more than they value members of their own families.

Savage’s strategy, intended or otherwise, worked. The parties got together rather quickly and created what they felt was a win-win situation for everyone, everyone that is except Quinn and the whole boatload of fans that remain unconvinced of Anderson’s long-term value. The assembled media, having just been told about all the advantages that not signing Anderson had presented now were being told that this is what the Browns really wanted to do all along.

In a strange way, it’s probably true. Early on in the negotiations, it was clear that Savage wanted to retain Anderson, but did not necessarily feel that his breakout season warranted the kind of commitment the Dallas Cowboys made to Tony Romo. Anderson had one of the better season’s any quarterback has had in Cleveland Browns history, but he’s still just a one-year wonder. On close examination, there was enough inconsistency in Anderson’s play, despite his production, to rightly give Savage a reason to not completely trash the investment he made in Quinn.

The guess, too, is that Anderson’s agents were more or less finding out the same thing around the league. One good year is great, now show me something. As a result, they probably had no real choice but to work something out with the Browns along the lines that Savage initially outlined.

For Anderson, re-signing with the Browns was a pretty low-risk gamble. As Savage noted, the kind of guaranteed money they are paying Anderson assures that he heads into next season as the clear number one quarterback. Consequently, he doesn’t have to go through one of head coach Romeo Crennel’s so-called open competitions that only ensure that no quarterback will be ready by the first game.

That should give Anderson the breathing space to find his rhythm in training camp without worrying that he’s one bad pass from being benched. It also helps that Anderson now has a good understanding of a system that was new to him last year. But probably the biggest benefit for everyone concerned is that Anderson gets to prove his worth behind one of the league’s better offensive lines and with enough skill players surrounding him so that he doesn’t feel compelled to do more than he’s capable. It’s a far better situation than almost any other that was available to him in free agency. It also increases the likelihood of Anderson having another solid season to the point that his trade value next year might be even higher.

But the high upon which Anderson ended the day likely paled in comparison to what Quinn was probably feeling. At 7 a.m. Friday morning, Quinn was thinking he was going to get a legitimate chance to start next season. By 11 a.m. Quinn found himself pretty much in the same position he was in at the end of the season—holding a clipboard and waiting for Anderson to fail or get injured. This can’t be at all what he imagined as his future just one year ago.

In large measure though, Anderson’s fortunes and Quinn’s status have a common thread: Quinn’s agent Tom Condon. The best break that Anderson got was Condon’s intransigence last summer during negotiations with the Browns. It completely changed the calculus that Savage and Crennel thought they’d be solving entering into training camp.

Instead of situation where Quinn would be part of the mix from the outset, Crennel and company were left with only Anderson and Charlie Frye to evaluate. Though neither quarterback acquitted themselves particularly well, Anderson at least got the chance to demonstrate an ability to make decisions quickly, a skill Frye simply doesn’t have. Anderson also showcased an exceptionally strong, though not always accurate, arm. These two attributes convinced at least offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski that the Browns needed to keep Anderson around, even if he wasn’t going to be the starter.

If Condon hadn’t forced a holdout by trying to leverage the fact that the Browns gave up a number one pick in 2008 to get Quinn as a reason to pay Quinn well in excess of what his draft status (#22 overall) dictated, it’s likely that a contract could have gotten done before training camp started. Had that occurred, both Anderson’s and Frye’s reps would have been significantly reduced in favor of Quinn. Given that Frye was the putative starter heading into training camp, it was Anderson who really would have suffered the most.

As it was, Quinn ended up signing the kind of deal that he could have had early on, a point Savage highlighted when Quinn did sign That 11 days and 16 practices Quinn missed has now proven more costly to than he ever could have imagined. It’s also proven to be more lucrative for Anderson then he had a right to imagine.

Now it looks like Quinn’s chance is at least another season away. There’s no reason to doubt Savage when he said on Friday that he had no intention of trading Anderson this year. There’s likewise no reason to doubt Savage when he said, rather definitively, that Anderson is the starter.

Quinn’s entrée into the NFL has hardly been a smooth one, from the fiasco that was draft day, to the unnecessary holdout, and now to the Browns near-term commitment to Anderson. But if Quinn is the type of player that Savage and the fans now bemoaning the resigning of Anderson think he is, then Quinn will be stronger for the experience. That being the case, then the Browns really are set at quarterback for the foreseeable future.

While Cleaning Off My Desk This Morning...

If you thought you had already witnessed a game like Wednesday night’s Cavaliers/Dallas Mavericks game, it’s because you had. Only it was back in September and it was between the Browns and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The Mavs put a beat-down on the Cavs of Steelers proportions. They held LeBron James scoreless for the first half for the first time in his career and ultimately limited him to 10 points. If Cleveland thought that James’ performance in the World Games this past summer when he shot something like 168% from the field was going to carryover into the NBA regular season, perhaps then last night’s game was a real eye-opener. Most fans probably appreciate the differences between the two games, but still, an open 15-footer is an open 15-footer. It just wasn’t James’ night.

The bigger concern that last night’s performance fed was that the woeful play of the preseason would carry into the regular season. Fans and players can shrug off the preseason as meaningless, but for a team like the Cavs that basically stood pat in the off season, those games were played with the same crew that fans saw Wednesday night.

And while we’re kvetching about the Cavs game, let’s not get too excited about the imminent return of Sasha Pavlovic or the eventual signing of Anderson Varajeo. All that does is ensure that the Cavs will be at full strength. Whatever flaws they had and were exposed in the NBA Finals against San Antonio will still be there given the dearth of off-season activity by the club. The problem is that much of the rest of the league was moving forward, particularly Boston.

It’s the second straight season the Cavs have basically stood still and while the team’s regular season record was basically the same last year as the year before, the team did get deeper into the playoffs, even if they were swept by the Spurs in the finals. Thus, the only places left for this year’s team to go with essentially the same lineup are either to win it all or backward. Staying static, which means getting to the finals and being swept, doesn’t sound all that appealing to anyone.

But if you think this team is ready to win it all, which is your right, I have one suggestion: put down the happy juice. If this team is to reach its stated goal of sustained excellence in the mold of the Spurs, then they have to find a way to upgrade the roster, significantly. Simple to say, hard to do, critical to accomplish.

***
Speaking of the Browns/Pittsburgh Steelers game from week one, the poster child for the futility in that game, Charlie Frye, returns with the Seattle Seahawks this week. Frye was hardly the only culprit in that game, but it does speak volumes that the Browns themselves saw it that way when they yanked him midway through and traded him a few days later. It also speaks volumes that the Browns have thrived, offensively anyway, since then.

I always liked Frye, not necessarily as a big-time player in the NFL, but as a decent guy with local roots who worked hard and had his heart in the right place. I’m glad he landed somewhere in the NFL and while everyone is saying the right things about him, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone in the NFL that truly believes Frye will ever become the starter for any team outside of an injury to the regular quarterback.

And as much of a beating Frye has taken, both physically and to his ego, you have to admire his pluck. According to a story by Mary Kay Cabot in Thursday’s Plain Dealer, Frye said he wasn’t surprised at how well the Browns are moving the ball since “nobody was really stopping us in the preseason.”

I guess that’s true if by “us” Frye means “Brady Quinn.” The only quarterback that seemed to move the team consistently in preseason was Quinn. He at least had three touchdown passes. Neither Frye nor Anderson had any. Moreover, the team was hardly an offensive juggernaut, scoring 16, 20, 17 and 19 points in the four games. In fact, throw in the seven points the team scored against Pittsburgh and at that point basically everyone was stopping them. There was absolutely no reason to believe that this team would suddenly turn into the machine it’s become. That’s what made the 51 points scored against the Bengals seem so stunning at the time.

The truth is that this team was going nowhere with Frye as the quarterback. Though confident to a fault when he spoke, Frye lacked the kind of confidence necessary to make decisions quickly. He always seemed so intent on not making a mistake that that’s all he ended up doing, making mistakes. Anderson, on the other hand, carries his confidence on the field in a way Frye could not. Anderson makes quick decisions; less worried is he about making mistakes than in moving the team forward. And when he does make a mistake, it doesn’t seem to linger on his next drive. In other words, he has what good quarterbacks in the NFL have to have, a short memory.

***

And finally, there was a nice little nugget this week that Eric Metcalf is eligible for the Pro Football Hall of Fame this year. The Board of Selectors for the Hall of Fame puts out a preliminary list of eligible candidates this time of year. That list is eventually winnowed down to 17 finalists, 15 from the modern era and two senior nominees. From the finalists, at least four and no more than seven ultimately get selected, with final approval by 80 percent of the selectors required.

Apparently Metcalf is on that preliminary list. If you’re like me, your initial reaction had to be something like “unless they’re considering an exhibit of undersized running backs crashing into the middle of the line for no gain, how could Metcalf’s name appear on any list?” I stand by that assessment.

But to be fair to Metcalf he did play 12 full seasons in the league, which is kind of hard to believe. Despite his size, he was relatively injury-free. He was also a NFL vagabond. After his six seasons in Cleveland, he was in Atlanta for two, and then in San Diego, Arizona, Carolina and Washington for one year each. His last year was 2002 when he appeared in one game for Green Bay.

Though he was utilized to most as a running back in Cleveland to no great effect, once he left town he was almost exclusively a receiver, again mostly to no great effect. He did have one monster season, 1995 with Atlanta when he had 104 receptions for 1189 yards and eight touchdowns. He never got close to that again.

Where Metcalf was most feared and most effective was as a return man. Overall, he had 280 kick returns and 351 punt returns. In fact, his 351 returns are second all time to Brian Mitchell, a contemporary of Metcalf’s. Mitchell also holds the record for most kick returns, 607.

Metcalf’s 10 touchdowns as a punt returner is a NFL record. He had two touchdowns twice with Cleveland and three with San Diego in 1997. But his average of 9.8 yards per return isn’t even close to the record of 12.78. For perspective, Josh Cribbs is currently averaging almost 12 yards per return.

Though he had a decent career upon which he can look back fondly, there is virtually nothing about it other than its sheer length that even hints at Hall of Fame. Undoubtedly the selectors will see likewise. But though he is long since gone I doubt he’ll ever be forgotten here in Cleveland. That’s because in Cleveland, just as everyone knows the “Red Right 88” they also know the name of the play where an undersized back like Jerome Harrison is sent into the line for no gain. It’s called “Metcalf up the middle.”

Pulling the Plug

With all that seems to be going on in Berea with the Browns these days, it would hardly shock if their mission statement was cribbed from the Japanese proverb that says “Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.”

Demonstrating a propensity to effectively alternate between daydreams and nightmares while keeping reality at arms length, the Browns have no idea where they’re going so to them any road will do. And because the sun has set and it’s another new day, there’s another new road for the Browns.

In what surely will go down as one of the more memorable press briefings by the Browns in recent memory, GM Phil Savage, in the course of but minutes, left fans on Tuesday wondering exactly what he and his wreck of a franchise are trying to accomplish this season.

Initially, Savage laid out the case that the objective is to win, saying “Some people think we're doing some kind of experiment, but we’re not. We are trying to win. Unfortunately, things got derailed Sunday before we even got started. Obviously, we have to play better. I think our team knows we’re very serious about winning, and I think they'll have confidence in whoever we put out there.”

But if that really is the case, which is unlikely, surely it was completely undermined a few minutes later when Savage essentially relegated winning to an afterthought when he said: “The important thing in the big picture is that we develop Brady Quinn in the right way. That is the most important thing that we have to do this year. That's what we’re trying to do. . . . And win.”

Seeing the quote really doesn’t do justice to how that message was delivered. The “and win” wasn’t said for emphasis. Far from it. It was a tagged on afterthought when Savage suddenly realized that he had just told season ticket holders and everyone else who owner Randy Lerner is counting on to financially and emotionally support this franchise that nothing, not winning, not preparation or professional effort, not even credibility, is more important than developing Brady Quinn. (You can hear the press conference by going to the Browns official website (http://www.clevelandbrowns.com/), clicking on the multimedia tab and searching for Savage’s September 11 press conference.)

As unprecedented as the trade of Charlie Frye may have been, it pales in comparison to the unprecedented site of a general manager throwing the towel in on the season after just one game. The Browns aren’t talented enough to make the playoffs anyway so maybe he was just stating the obvious—that henceforth the Browns are in an extended pre-season mode. But there still is something dispiriting about the one person charged with making all personnel decisions telling the fans just nine days into the season that hey, winning would be nice, but we’ve got more important work to do.

Maybe in some perverse sort of way Savage should be credited for his candor. But it’s also fair to suggest that if Savage believes that anything in professional sports trumps winning, then he’s really in the wrong job. In fact he’s in the wrong profession.

You can’t create a winning culture without winning and so long as Savage believes that the development of the 22nd pick in the draft, a pick that fell to him by happenstance and luck, prevails over building that winning culture, the long nightmare that has been the Browns return will continue uninterrupted.

This is not to be naïve about Savage’s comments. It’s clear he’s taking a long view of the situation and essentially saying that getting Quinn to realize his potential will eventually yield wins. And, in his view, if sacrificing a season for the long-term is what it takes Savage seems comfortable with it. But are the fans? Are the players? Not likely.

Professional athletes are an interesting breed. The public often focuses too much on the business side of their lives, bemoaning the contract negotiations, the holdouts and the outsized salaries. But at their core, what makes athletes who they are is a competitive nature that doesn’t countenance losing. Collecting a good salary is a nice perk, but what keeps them coming back every day and makes them take such risks with their bodies is the chance to win, to establish superiority over others. It’s their most basic instinct.

The same is true with the fans. The reason there is a separate section in every newspaper in the country dedicated to sports, the reason forums like this exist, the reason that every town with a radio tower offers an outlet for every Rick from Brunswick to talk sports, is because fans are passionate about their teams and demand the opportunity to revel in their wins and complain about the losses. Fans want to win every game and get very emotional when that need isn’t met. What they don’t want to hear are excuses or long-term views or sacrificing the here and now for some elusive promise seasons away.

That’s why Savage’s comments are likely to be going over inside and outside Berea about as well as a Romeo Crennel halftime pep talk. He has pulled the plug on a season almost as soon as it got started. In the process, he has asked his players, including the free agents he brought in here to win now, to sacrifice their current health in order to help achieve a goal that they might not be around to witness, let alone enjoy. He also has asked the fans to subjugate their need to win now for a greater payoff somewhere down the yellow brick road. And in doing so, he’s also asked both groups to take a tremendous leap of faith that nothing else will go wrong in the interim.

It’s hard to imagine any scenario where that would be an acceptable request, particularly given the Browns unwillingness to participate in that request by, say, cutting ticket prices in the meantime. But given the credibility gap that is by now at least a mile wide and a thousand miles deep between the Browns and the fans, Savage truly is asking the impossible.

But then again, Savage wasn’t really asking anyway, was he? Given a long leash inside a franchise with no actual organization to it, Savage spoke like a man who has absolutely no concern for the consequences.

What Savage may not realize yet, but someday may, is that those consequences are nonetheless quite tangible. They involve such petty matters as the alienation of an entire generation of Browns fans who now have gone 13 years, almost a generation itself, without anything substantial to hold their interest.

Oh well, there’s always the hope that Savage will be right about Quinn. After all, he was right about Chris Redman, Kyle Boller and Charlie Frye.

That Happened

Well, so much for that.

In a season that many fans felt would finally mark the beginning of something new, something different, there was an amazing sameness to the debacle that took place on Sunday at Cleveland Browns Stadium.

Let’s see, the Browns lost, again, to the Steelers in, again, blow-out fashion. Not only does that mean that head coach Romeo Crennel hasn’t yet beaten the Steelers, it also means he hasn’t beaten anyone in the entire Central Division. Ever. The Browns, predictably, went three and out on their first possession. And let us not forget everyone’s favorite statistic: Crennel lost two more replay challenges, making him 0-9 for his career.

But what is most disturbing beyond these irritants is the fact that, again, a Crennel-coached team looked completely unprepared, which is understandable since they had only nine days to ready themselves.

No one seriously questions whether or not the Steelers have better players than the Browns. They do, in spades. But what is hard to fathom is how the Browns could look so dismal out of the gate. Not only did they fail to get a first down in their first possession, which isn’t necessarily a portent of anything, but on their very first punt of the day they had four separate penalties, which was a portent of all that followed. Four penalties on one play is not something you’ll see very often. It makes you wonder what the heck were the other seven guys doing, taking the play off? Oh yea, make that six other players since replacement punter Paul Ernster was busy running for his life after fumbling a perfectly-snapped ball. At least Ernster got the ball back. Maybe Crennel will let him keep it as a memento of his short-time with the Browns. Goodbye Paul, we hardly knew ye. But fret not for Ernster, he’s one of the lucky ones.

The usual suspects were also having their typical day. Charlie Frye threw his usual interception and so did Derek Anderson, who fumbled for good measure. Jamal Lewis, rendered essentially moot when the Browns predictably fell behind early, fumbled as well. So too did the always mercurial Braylon Edwards. In all, five turnovers. Yet, somehow, despite the rocky beginning, it was only 17-0 at halftime, not a completely insurmountable lead.

But as poor as Crennel is in preparing a team for a game he’s even worse on game day. If anyone thought that the Browns might come out differently after the half, then you’re just not paying attention. Whatever he said at halftime couldn’t have landed with more of a thud as the Steelers took the opening drive, predictably, for the touchdown that ended any fleeting thought that the game might get competitive.

In surveying the wreckage, about the only positive was Crennel’s strategy in keeping secret until game time who the back-up quarterback would be. Crennel didn’t want the Steelers to be able to prepare for the Browns’ second stringer, which is a good thing. You’d hate to think what the Steelers would have done had they had a chance to prepare for Anderson.

Perhaps Crennel actually knew something we all didn’t about his starting quarterback. But it was revealed soon enough. Charlie Frye couldn’t have looked less like a third-year player in a make or break year if he had tried. Instead, he was shakier than Don Knotts. You could see the indecisiveness in the way he held the ball for so long, so intent was he on not making a mistake that all he could do was make mistakes.

But like Ernster, Frye’s probably one of the lucky ones. The only chance he has, or should have, of entering a game from this point forward is if Anderson and Brady Quinn both get hurt.

And in this regard, there is some slight hope, assuming you’re a long-term thinker. On the heels of this dismal day, Brady Quinn undoubtedly moved up on the depth chart. While it’s doubtful he’ll start next week that is only because Crennel is stubborn and doesn’t want to look like he’s abandoned all hope going into the second game of the season. He’ll start soon enough.

But if Crennel is waiting to make that move because he’s worried about the fragile psyche of his team, he need not. Ill-prepared though they might have been, that is absolutely no reason for their playing without any pride whatsoever. The offensive line essentially refused to hold a block, the defensive line refused to push back and the defensive backs looked like tackling was a second language. In other words, this is a group that has proven to be particularly resilient to being motivated by embarrassment save for, maybe, Kellen Winslow, who caught four passes for 83 yards and actually threw a few hard blocks and Antwan Peek, the newly-acquired linebacker.

As for the rest of the misfits, whatever positive scraps you can find are far outweighed by the negatives. One particular image should suffice and that was of defensive back Sean Jones throwing his hands up in disgust at fellow defensive back Brodney Pool for letting Santonio Holmes blow by him for the Steelers second touchdown, a 40-yard toss from Ben Roethlisberger. Way to have your teammate’s back. Oh yea, for good measure there also was rookie Eric Wright covering receivers like he was Owen Wilson in “Wedding Crashers” trying to cover Zack. It may be a bit soon to nickname Wright “Toast” but let’s put it this way, the bread is warming.

Which gets us back to Savage and his barometer for Crennel. Savage has been definitive in support of his head coach, allowing himself only the slightest of outs by saying he’d reconsider if the Browns lost a bunch of games 50-0. Well, that’s looking less like an out for Savage and more like a prophecy. Frankly, the only reason the score wasn’t worse was the fact that the Steelers themselves looked a bit rusty. Oh, and it rained, too.

There is no doubt that Savage and Crennel will say the usual stuff about looking at the films and having some work to do and getting things corrected. And they’ll also caution that it is too soon to write off the season. But that’s what Lloyd Carr told his team and fans after their loss to Appalachian State and look how that turned out. At least the Michigan Wolverines can still win their conference. The Browns have been all but mathematically eliminated. In week one.

Vertigo

If you’re feeling just a bit like your sports world had gone slightly askew, you aren’t alone. While it’s not quite as if we’re walking through the looking glass, there still is enough strangeness taking place to make one feel like he has to grab hold of a table just to steady himself from time to time.

First off, of course, was the site of one of the most high profile NFL players standing outside a courthouse in Atlanta shortly after pleading guilty to various charges surrounding his involvement in dogfighting, simultaneously apologizing to everyone he lied to while referring to himself in the third person as if the heinous acts were actually committed by someone else.

You can play the Michael Vick saga out in your mind any way you like. If you want to wear Vick’s number 7 jersey in support, like some did yesterday, have at it. If you want to delude yourself into thinking that Vick suddenly found Jesus, as he proclaimed, it’s a free country so have at that, too. But if you decide to compare the words of his day late/dollar short apology to the legal document to which he actually plead guilty, you will come to understand that Vick’s primary concern was not about what he had done, who he had hurt, or who he lied to, but instead was about making one last stab at salvaging an existence in professional football.

But the Vick case is taking place in Atlanta and while a curiosity everywhere, most sports fans in Cleveland are more concerned about what’s taking place in Berea and at Jacobs Field these days. And the events of the last several days from both corners are enough to give you vertigo.

The crispness and efficiency with which the Browns opened the game Saturday night against the Denver Broncos was not just unlikely but almost completely unexpected. With fans, the media and even the coaching staff practically begging either Charlie Frye or Derek Anderson to grab hold of the wheel and not let go, the two have spent most of the preseason like the annoyingly over polite chipmunks from the Looney Tunes cartoons trying to give the job to the other guy. But on Saturday, Frye finally demonstrated, if just a bit, that he finally got the message. While the play of Frye was certainly unexpected, it’s also more than fair to suggest that head coach Romeo Crennel’s belated revelation that a quarterback is better prepared to play if he knows in advance and not minutes before the kickoff he is starting also may have been at least partially responsible for Frye’s improved play.

But what really was askew, ultimately, was the simple fact that the Browns took the opening kickoff, marched the full 80 yards and finished the task by scoring a touchdown. This is simply something Browns fans are not accustomed to seeing. Though this isn’t a new phenomena since the return in 1999, given that most fans sense of history spans about two seasons, it’s also worth mentioning that first quarter efficiency has hardly been part of the Crennel era either.

The last time the Browns scored a touchdown on their opening drive was on December 3, 2006 against Kansas City. It was their twelfth game of the season. It was also the only time all season that the Browns did score a touchdown on their opening drive. In fact, including the Kansas City game, there were only five games all of last season when the Browns scored any points on their opening drive. The other four occasions were field goals.

Prior to last year’s Kansas City game, you’d have to go all the way back to the second Cincinnati game on December 11, 2005, essentially a season’s worth of games, for the last time the Browns scored a touchdown the first time they had the ball. Even more telling, perhaps, is the fact that the Browns were shut out in the first quarter in nine of their 16 games last season. In just two games, only one of which ultimately resulted in a victory, did Cleveland even hold a first quarter lead and that was, again, the Kansas City game. Three other times, they were tied after one quarter, 0-0. In fact, if you want to get really picky, in the Crennel era the most points they’ve ever scored in a first quarter were 10 points, against Houston, which was the seventh game in 2005.

Thus, to be charitable, getting off to a quick start hasn’t exactly been a trademark of the Browns under Crennel. With this sort of macro picture as context it would hardly be unwarranted, even if unwise, for fans to be just a bit giddy over the emerging prospects for this year’s edition of the Browns. To this point, though, they’re probably just awe struck, the same as they were last week when Brady Quinn successfully executed a two-minute drive.

And if the oddness of the Browns actually looking like a team with a plan from the opening kickoff forward wasn’t enough, consider also that Quinn, the putative quarterback of the future, didn’t fall flat on his face after his stunning debut. If anything, Quinn did what most fans in Cleveland thought impossible when it comes to the Browns: he followed up one good performance with another.

But if fans expected Crennel to acknowledge what everyone has observed and simply anoint Frye as the opening game starter and Quinn the backup, not so fast. Crennel, demonstrating the full range of his abundant leadership skills, testily, almost angrily, refused to make his thoughts known on the subject. Indeed, he seemed almost puzzled, a recurring theme with Crennel actually, as to why there was such an interest in the topic, almost forgetting that it was he who made it such by declaring prior to training camp that there would be an open competition for quarterback.

Crennel did allow that he had an idea as to who it might be, however, but didn’t offer much else apparently because he hadn’t yet had the chance to consult his Magic 8 ball or find his lucky coin.

Still, if the players use the preseason to ready themselves (and in the past that has been an assumption that hasn’t necessary been valid), the fans do the same thing. The optimism of the opening of training camp generally fades as the opening of the season beckons and you’re left staring head-on at a likely 1-4 start, again. While this isn’t to suggest that a 2-1 preseason is cause to reconsider whether to bet your pension on a Browns playoff run, the level of professionalism on the offensive side of the ball, as a result of the hiring of offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski, gives us all a chance to steady ourselves whiling giving pause to consider that even if Crennel can’t pull it all together, the Browns won’t have to go outside, again, to find their next coach. Which at least means that there is some reason, as incongruous as it all sounds, to believe that the Browns probably are actually pointed in the right direction. The question, as always, is how long will we have to wait until better results follow?

And if the Browns didn’t leave your head completely spinning on Saturday night, surely the Indians victory on Sunday finished off the job.

Out of the gate, even the most optimistic fan knew that an Indians/Royals match-up is hardly cause for celebration. For reasons that make about as much sense as ESPN Classic, the Indians can’t seem to completely handle this doormat of a team. Over the last two seasons, the Indians are 17-13 against the Royals, which is respectable, but hardly dominating, particularly since the Royals are otherwise 56 games under .500 over that same period.

And while the lack of run support for either C.C. Sabathia or Fausto Carmona this weekend was disturbingly predictable, what was much less so was how the Indians managed to pull out a victory from the jaws of defeat on Sunday.

Down to essentially one pitch, the Indians did something that’s been in short supply for much too long. They showed uncharacteristic, at least as of late, resilience and found a way to tie the game at 3-3 in the ninth. Grady Sizemore blooped a double and Asdrubal Cabrera, playing like the Indians expected Josh Barfield to play, hit a clutch single to bring Sizemore home. Of course, the Indians couldn’t finish the job in the ninth, but on display for everyone to see, even if for only a few moments, was the realignment of the stars. The Indians suddenly looked like a team with a bit of swagger while the Royals, were remembering they were the Royals by sleepwalking through the extra innings just waiting for defeat which came, mercifully, incongruously, when Travis Hafner hit a solid single up the middle to plate the winning run. And as if the planet realignment was not quite enough, nearly incongruously Joe Borowski worked a completely uneventful bottom of the 11th for his 37th save.

On Monday night, it was refreshing and, as of late, rather unexpected as well, to see the Indians carry over that swagger against the Minnesota Twins. It was a third straight win and, as importantly, a third straight game in which they actually scored three or more runs. This will either be the beginning of another chapter or a mere smudge on the same page that they’ve been unable to turn for the last six weeks. This homestand will provide the answer.

Ultimately, though, whether the jolt to the equilibrium that both the Browns and the Indians provided to their fans over the last few days will turn out to be a pleasant buzz or a raging hangover depends on each team’s ability to make such performances less incongruous and more commonplace. In each case, though, that may be a case of asking more than either has the overall talent to deliver.

The Better Question

It was probably sometime around Brady Quinn’s second completion last Saturday night that the debate began in earnest: what to do with the kid? As the game ended and Saturday night grew into Sunday and Sunday into Monday, the debate has taken on a life of its own. It seems that the only person who hasn’t yet weighed in on whether Quinn should start or see significant playing time against Denver this Saturday or Pittsburgh on opening day is the Plain Dealer’s Bill Livingston and that’s only because he’s waiting until everyone else has gone on record first.

But lost in all this debate is a deeper, darker question: does anyone trust that Browns head coach Romeo Crennel can actually handle the situation appropriately? Personally, I do not. And it’s not that I’m totally anti-Crennel. As a head coach he makes a fine defensive coordinator. But nothing he has said and done to this point in his career as a head coach even suggests that Crennel can make the right decisions when it comes to the offensive side of the field.

There are any number of examples, of course, but just take a stroll down memory lane, all the way back to last season and how poorly Crennel handled the situation with former offensive coordinator Maurice Carthon and you can begin to understand why the chances are virtually nil that the quarterbacking situation now will be handled any better.

With Carthon, there were any number of troubling signs early and often. Carthon in many ways was the football coaching equivalent to Eddie Murray as a hitting instructor. Uncommunicative and prickly, Carthon did precious little to forge a relationship with anyone other than Crennel and it showed both in the results and the comments by the players thereafter.

Maybe it was too much to ask of any coach to control serial loudmouths like Braylon Edwards or Kellen Winslow, Jr. Certainly Crennel hasn’t been able to do that fully. And maybe it’s just coincidence that two of the least quoted players since the arrival of new offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski are Edwards and Winslow. But what was at least clear is that Edwards and Winslow, to the extent that they respect anyone anyway, had little affection for Carthon and vice versa. Carthon’s inability to reach these two strong personalities was as much a problem with the offense as was Carthon’s stubborn insistence that the fullback be the focal point.

But rather than recognize that Carthon was, at the very least, about 10 feet in over his head, Crennel continued to back the troubled coordinator in ways that are still puzzling. As most will recall, it wasn’t until things were really spinning out of control that Crennel said that he might have to start spending more time with the offense in order to make sure things were going in the right direction. In making this statement, Crennel unwittingly admitted that Carthon, so overmatched and underprepared, basically had the kind of free reign with the offense that he neither earned nor deserved.

Crennel did, however, show that he at least has a better survival instinct than, say, Charlie Manuel, and eventually stopped covering for the inept Carthon and sent him packing. While it didn’t save the season, not even close, it did demonstrate that Crennel wasn’t willing to put his own job on the line by standing behind Carthon, George Bush-like, all results to the contrary notwithstanding.

But it is instructive to go back to that sordid history in order to rightly wonder whether there is any chance that Crennel might handle the quarterback situation any better than he handled last year’s debacles. The early signs aren’t promising even for the most optimistic among us.

Based on the late play of Derek Anderson last season, it seemed fair that Crennel would open up the competition for the starting job this year. And it likewise seemed fair that Quinn would be part of that mix when he was first drafted and just as fair when Quinn was not after he voluntarily took himself out of that mix by foolishly holding up his own progress over little more than pocket change for the first 11 or so practices of training camp. But since opening up the competition Crennel has seemed mostly paralyzed by indecision, a state not necessarily self-inflicted but a state he’s found himself in nevertheless.

Unable to muster any command presence whatsoever, Crennel essentially made himself a national laughingstock by admitting he’d just flip a coin to decide who would start—Charlie Frye or Anderson—against Kansas City in the first preseason game. It’s doubtful that’s the kind of attention either owner Randy Lerner of GM Phil Savage wanted to see for their struggling franchise. It’s understandable why it was a difficult decision for Crennel (or anyone) given Frye and Anderson’s performance in camp to this point. But as the head coach, Crennel owns that decision and it’s his to make. Leaving it to fate may seem whimsical but it’s really cowardly. It’s hard to imagine Bill Belichick or Tom Landry or Bill Cowher doing likewise.

Crennel offered the lame excuse that he wanted to see how the quarterbacks would respond to such uncertainty as the reason for flipping the coin. What he really did was ensure that neither quarterback was fully prepared. Though Crennel abandoned his coaching by coin-flipping strategy for the second preseason game, he refused to make his decision on which quarterback would start known either publicly or privately until just before kickoff, again using the same “let’s see how they respond” excuse. Maybe it was just coincidence that Anderson fumbled the opening snap.

As the Browns enter this week’s game against Denver, Crennel has essentially admitted his mistakes and has named Frye as the starter. Crennel told the media at his press conference yesterday “I’m naming him early because I think both guys-not knowing who the starter is going to be and when they’ll play, it began to wear on them.” It took Crennel two games to figure that out?

One could fairly argue that the onus is on Frye and Anderson to be ready, irrespective the inane obstacles thrown in their way by the head coach. Perhaps. But adjusting to unforeseen circumstances within a game is one thing, being kept in the dark about your overall status by the head coach is quite another. It doesn’t matter whether you are a NFL head coach or the floor supervisor at Wal Mart. Employees respond best when they understand what is and is not expected of them. Keeping them in the dark and then dropping them in the deep end of the pond to see if they can swim to shore is hardly the enlightened view of any high performing organization. Put it this way: if Eric Wedge didn’t reveal to his pitchers who would be starting until just before the opening pitch, would it be fair to criticize the starter if he wasn’t effective?

One of the key responsibilities of a head coach is to know his personnel. The reason Bill Parcells was such an effective head coach for so many years is that he knew which buttons to push on each player. What worked on Terry Glenn might not work as well on Tony Romo and so on. But Crennel has never been able to grasp that simple concept, even if its execution is deceptively difficult, and his handling thus far of the Frye/Anderson conundrum is Exhibit 672.

It’s hard to know whether a different head coach might be able to ring more out of either Frye or Anderson to make any discussion of Quinn’s status moot. But it is at least as clear as anything else with the Browns these days that the quarterback quagmire is as much a manifestation of Crennel’s abject mishandling of the entire affair as anything else.

Which is what really makes all this discussion about Quinn foreboding. How much Quinn should play Saturday night or going forward, based simply on his performance last Saturday, is a nice debate but its resolution hinges on an incredibly shaky platform and that is Crennel himself. It’s highly unlikely that Crennel will suddenly become adept at handling tricky situations and, whatever else one might think of the troubles with Crennel had with resolving the Carthon situation, that will seem like a day at the casino as compared to what he currently faces right now with Frye, Anderson and Quinn. But given all that’s come before it, is there really any chance that Crennel won’t roll snake eyes again?

The First Impression

Quibble about the circumstances if you must, but give the kid his due, he makes a heck of an entrance.

On a night that featured its share of ironic moments including the release of former franchise savior Tim Couch earlier in the day by the Jacksonville Jaguars, future franchise savior Browns quarterback Brady Quinn did something Saturday night that neither fellow quarterbacks Charlie Frye nor Derek Anderson have been able to accomplish: seize the moment. When former Browns quarterback Bernie Kosar, providing color commentary, uttered what even he called an overused cliché—“you never get a second chance to make a first impression”—it all seemed set up for such failure. Would Quinn stand behind the right tackle instead of the center on his first snap? Would he forget the play and call time out? Would he pull back from center too quickly and fumble the snap?

But for once, just once, it all went right. The first impressions in this case will be forever etched. Quinn dropped back for a short, confidence-building dump-off to last week’s hero, Chris Barkley, who proceeded merely to scamper 30 yards. Virtually everything thereafter continued to go well for Quinn as he drove the Browns down and then did something neither Frye nor Anderson have been able to accomplish to this point in the preseason—punch the ball in for a touchdown.

The contrast between Quinn’s first appearance and Anderson’s start could not have been more stark. Ever since Anderson appeared late last season as a viable contender to the starting role, Head Coach Romeo Crennel and a win-starved fan base have been craving for either Frye or Anderson to step forward and take the reins. But to this point it just hasn’t happened. For every step forward, there are two steps back. On the first Browns play from scrimmage it was Anderson who looked every bit the scared rookie as he dropped back to pass and in his carelessness, had the ball stripped, leading to a relatively easy Detroit Lions field goal.

Anderson regrouped enough to make it clear that his future is in a back-up roll, whether in Cleveland or elsewhere. Leading the team on its next drive and standing on the precipice of the first touchdown of the preseason, the Browns under Anderson suddenly crumbled into the mess of a team it was so much of last year. By the time the offensive linemen were finished false starting and Anderson was finished either ignoring the time clock or burning enough time outs to make sure he didn’t blow the opporunity, he then did just that, failing to recognize that there was confusion in the middle of the field as Kellen Winslow, Jr. and Steve Heiden seemed to be running the exact same route, unfortunately in the exact same spot. Instead of throwing it away, he tried to force the issue with an ill-conceived pass late over the middle for the inevitable interception. It would be hard to script two worse possessions for Anderson personally or two more telling possessions, from the coaches’ perspective assuming the question being asked of them is whether Anderson is the answer. He’s not.

Frye, was, well, Frye. He completed his share of passes, as usual. And he made his share of mental mistakes, as usual. The fourth-and-2 play from the 35-yard line was the most instructive. It was a situation in which a team does one of two things. It either tries the old “see-if-we-can-pull-the-other-team-offsides-with-a-hard-count” which worked once about 38 years ago, or a quick quarterback sneak which requires the element of surprise. Generally, teams expect the former, which is why, if you want to pull off the latter, you need to get the team set in a way that looks like instead you’re just trying to pull the other team offside. Frye, showing all the composure of a high school boy on prom night, had the ball snapped before even half the team was set. The inevitable penalty would have been fine had Frye gained the two yards. Unfortunately, he failed in that, too, and 20 seconds later Detroit had finished off a four-play 66-yard drive for their first touchdown of the night.

While not as obviously abysmal as Anderson, Frye nonetheless showed that pedigree does matter and his years with the Akron Zips taught him little about taking over a room. Whether it’s the pressure of the competition that is wearing on him or a talent level that is insufficient really doesn’t matter. What is becoming clear is that for all his heart and grit, Frye is less Drew Brees and more Ty Detmer.

In evaluating Quinn, the post game comments of Crennel were as predictable as the befuddled looks he shows on the sidelines every time something bad happens on the offensive side of the ball. Crennel made sure everyone put Quinn’s performance in perspective. It was late. It was against (and with) players who won’t be playing pro football in a few weeks and the playbook was understandably limited. All true, of course. But what couldn’t be hidden was the poise Quinn showed during that final two-minute drive. It was textbook in every facet. It started at the Browns 8-yard line with no timeouts remaining. One minute, 52 seconds later, the 13^th play of the drive, Quinn threw a six-yard pass to Jerome Harrison for a touchdown. In between, Quinn made all the right reads, all the right moves and left everyone scratching their head trying to remember the last time they saw that happen.

It’s both easy and proper to keep the night in perspective, as Crennel cautioned. But if you don’t think that Quinn’s performance made a deep impression on Frye, for example, just watch a replay of what happened following the end of the game. As Quinn was accepting congratulations from teammates and several Lions players as well, Frye was walking around, baseball cap backward, with an expression that that seemed to say, to paraphrase Jon Landau, “I saw Cleveland quarterbacking future and its name is Brady Quinn.”

This doesn’t mean, of course, that Quinn should be the anointed starter. There is still much work to do. The performance of Quinn and, to a lesser extent, Ken Dorsey, who came on in the third quarter and led the Browns to their first touchdown of the preseason, were surely not enough to cause GM Phil Savage to dump either Frye or Anderson. At least not yet. But if, as conventional wisdom holds, the third preseason game is the most important of the four, then both Quinn and Dorsey deserve the bulk of the primetime reps. The books on Frye and Anderson and, perhaps even Dorsey, may not be complete, but there are certainly enough chapters written in each at this point for most to have a pretty good idea how the stories come out. Maybe there is a surprise or two still left, but the question facing Savage and Crennel is how much more time they want to invest finding out. And as they ponder that question, hopefully they’ll come to the conclusion that no one ever got rich investing in the past.

Obviously

When looking for deeper meaning, often we overlook the obvious. Exhibit A is the state of the Cleveland Indians these days. Exhibit B is the state of the Cleveland Browns these days.

The Indians are currently mired in the kind of slump that makes you wonder if they’ll ever win another game. They can’t seem to bunch any hits together. Game after game, they don’t advance runners. They strike out with such regularity it’s as if they have a team aversion to putting the ball in play. They fail so often with runners in scoring position that even being down one or two runs amounts to an insurmountable hurdle. And now, they aren’t even playing fundamentally sound. I’d research the last time a player got picked off first with the bases loaded and no outs, like Jhonny Peralta on Sunday, but I wouldn’t no where to start. Although I’m sure it’s happened before, suffice it to say though that if anyone can find another example, whether in little league, American Legion, minor leagues or Strat-o-matic, email me.

But that’s the thing about this particular run with the Indians. Slump is just the generic term we put on it because it’s far easier to describe it in one word than to undo what is surely a Gordian Knot by this point. But there are a few obvious points before getting all twisted up overanalyzing. Consider, for example, the notion that the Indians have suddenly stopped hitting. Travis Hafner’s struggles have been well chronicled, but the Indians’ run-scoring prowess is actually more myth than reality.

True, the Indians were scoring a lot of runs prior to the All Star game. But only a few bothered to notice that the biggest contributor to all of that was the fact that the Indians were hitting a ton of home runs and not much else. They really haven’t been very good at any point this year, except perhaps for April, in situational hitting. Advancing runners, playing small ball is not Manager Eric Wedge’s make-up and thus the team has very little experience with it. That’s why they can’t seem to make it work now when it’s needed most.

But the home runs aren’t coming nearly as frequently. Prior to the All Star game, the Indians were averaging more than one home run per game. During the 20-game stretch between May 20 and June 9, they hit 33. In fact, the only 20-game stretch during the season when they didn’t hit at least 20 home runs was June 10-June 30 and then they hit 19. But in the 30 games since the All Star break, they’ve hit 25 home runs overall. In the last 10 games, they’ve hit only five. In other words, the Indians ability to score was tied to the long ball and as that has become less and less frequent, so too has their ability to score runs in general.

Another way to look at it is to consider the team’s on-base percentage. From mid-June through the All Star break, it was holding very steady at around .352. Since then it has been in a freefall and is now at its lowest point, .341. When combined with the lack of home runs, which had been their salvation, one can see why the Indians can’t score runs. They don’t get on base and thus the occasional hit they do get is almost always for naught. As for putting the ball in play and advancing runners, just know that in the 18 games since July 25, they have had double-digit strike outs seven times and two other games when they struck out nine times each. One could draw the same conclusion as well by pointing to the fact that they have only 12 sacrifice hits since the All Star break. Of course, they didn’t have all that many prior to the All Star break, either, but it just points to the fact, when combined with all the strike outs, that the Indians can’t manufacture runs when they are otherwise struggling.

All this circles around back to the more obvious point: the Indians really haven’t been a run-producing machine, despite what many might otherwise think. The patch they are going through now owes as much as anything else to the surprising lack of power. Perhaps that’s the reason GM Mark Shapiro traded for Kenny Lofton in the first place. He needed someone to hit something other than a home run.

As for the Browns, so much kvetching is taking place in the media about the play of the quarterbacks. But simply wanting Charlie Frye or Derek Anderson to “step up” and seize the opportunity presented doesn’t mean it will actually happen. The underlying assumption is that either or both have the talent to do exactly that. But that disregards what is probably more obvious: neither actually does.

One of the problems with pre-season games is that they are called “games” rather than scrimmages. They have a look and feel of a real game. There’s a coin toss. The quarters are timed. There is a half time, a two minute warning and all of the other vestiges of a regular game. The Browns even charge for them, much to the chagrin of season ticket holders. The expectation is thus created that what is taking place is a game to be won and in a way that has some meaningful impact on what will take place during the regular season. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Never forget that preseason games are a forum for evaluating players and not a game to be won. Any team, including the Browns, can go 4-0 if that’s their goal. All they need to do is play their starters all game. They’ll win. Guaranteed.

But that’s not what teams do nor should they. Filling out the 45-man roster with the best available players is the goal and simulating game conditions is really the best way coaches have to accomplish that. But these are only simulated game conditions, at best. The established starters hardly play into the second quarter anymore and often don’t make it past the first few series. That’s true even for a team like Cleveland where the phrase “established starters” is more or less an oxymoron. When Frye is lining up with Syndric Steptoe and Josh Cribbs as his wide receivers, Buck Ortega as his tight end and Jerome Harrison is in the backfield this may be the best way to evaluate Steptoe, Cribbs, Ortega and Harrison, but it isn’t necessarily the best way to evaluate Frye or Anderson, for that matter. The only way to properly make that evaluation is with extended play by the starters and alternating quarterbacks. Unfortunately, that isn’t likely not only because of the risk of injury but, more importantly, it makes evaluating the rest of the team extremely difficult.

That all being said, it still amazes the amount of attention the so-called quarterback evaluation has gotten. Is Frye ahead? Is Anderson? How many throws did they complete in practice? Who looked better in the 7-on-7 drills? Put it this way, if GM Phil Savage really thought either Frye or Anderson was the long-term answer, he never would have traded next year’s first round pick in order to get Brady Quinn. Even if he isn’t saying it publicly, Savage already knows what should be obvious to the rest of us: neither Frye nor Anderson is the future. When Quinn is ready, and probably before that, he’ll play and continue to play until he’s hurt or proves he can’t play in this league.

When the season opens on September 9 against Pittsburgh, it will probably be Frye at quarterback, if only because he was the starter last year. Frye performed on Saturday pretty much like he performed all of last year. He completed a lot of short passes, tended to throw behind his receivers as the length of the route increased and was good for a brain cramp or two. The real surprise was Anderson. He simply looked lost. But again, that’s just stating the obvious, which is actually necessary these days. As more and more people look for answers below the surface, in the case of the Browns (and the Indians) the real ones have been staring them in the face all along.

Curious Generosity

Oh to be young, rich and a bundle of contradictions. In the last week or so, Cleveland Browns wide receiver has spent a great deal of time trying to repair a shaky and deserved reputation as a selfish malcontent. Of course, he spent nearly as much time also doing what he could to keep that reputation in tact.

Last Tuesday, Edwards was the prize of sorts in a contest run by the American Dairy Association and Giant Eagle named “Take Braylon Edwards to School.” As a result, there he was at Nordonia Middle School talking to a rapt young audience about the merits of drinking milk and working hard to achieve your goals. (See story here) While Edwards is no doubt a paid endorser for the sponsors, it still was a nice gesture and according to the report, Edwards was generous with his time while at the school. For someone like Edwards who has earned mostly bad publicity, it was a nice, feel good sort of story.

Edwards also has been generous with his money. According to a story this morning on ESPN and elsewhere, Edwards has pledged $1 million of his own money to fund a college scholarship program for Cleveland city school students who maintain at least a 2.5 grade point average through high school. The official announcement and the remainder of the details are expected to be announced on Wednesday. Again, this is more good publicity for someone who clearly needs to repair his image in this town.

Too bad Edwards’ generosity didn’t stop with his time and his money. Unfortunately for his fellow teammates and even Head Coach Romeo Crennel, Edwards was just as generous with his opinions, none of which could have made any of them particularly happy. In Sunday’s Plain Dealer, Tony Grossi reported on an interview Edwards recently gave to a show called “Movin the Chains” on Sirius radio. Among the pearls tossed by Edwards was his declaration that the Browns needed to go 10-6 in this next season to be considered a success.

Most assuredly, a 10-6 season will be considered a success. In fact, it is difficult to understate the seismic shift that would take place in this town if, indeed, the Browns were to miraculously post a 10-6 record next season. But Edwards feels as though even an 8-8 record, which would be a 100% improvement over last year, shouldn’t be considered a success. He cites an improved offense based on recent acquisitions (Joe Thomas, Kyle Brady, Jamal Lewis, Eric Steinbach) and the schemes of new coordinator Rod Chudzinski as the reason that expectations should be higher.

It’s hard to quibble with Edwards on this score and certainly having any player set the bar as high as possible makes great sense. And while it is as tempting as it is easy to detail for Edwards why the Browns would be lucky and hence extremely successful if they could double last year’s win total, particularly since, if the trends set in Crennel’s tenure hold, the Browns are due exactly two victories, we can leave that alone for now.

But if Edwards has any hope of being one of the reasons why the Browns ever win more than they lose in a single season, he’s simply going to have cease his annoying tendency of throwing teammates under the bus. In that same interview, Edwards was complimentary of the play of his quarterback Charlie Frye in the same way one is complimentary of a woman by saying “for a fat girl, she doesn’t sweat much.”

He admitted that Frye was put into a bad situation last year, which is an extreme understatement. With a wildly ineffective offensive line, an uninspired and ineffective running game, and an offensive coordinator situation that really put the function in dysfunctional, the Browns set the standard for placing quarterbacks in bad situations last season. But Edwards doesn’t necessarily attribute all or even most of Frye’s struggles to the “situation.” Instead, it’s an issue of pedigree.

According to Edwards “I saw some growth, but I still saw a kid that was coming from an Akron or a [Mid-American Conference] school and didn't necessarily have the knowledge or preparation of a Brady Quinn-type of collegiate QB. So I saw a guy that’s still learning, still has a long ways to go.”

You have to admire all that Edwards accomplished with that nugget. Utilizing an economy of words that has never suited him well, Edwards trashed Frye and kissed up to Quinn, even before Quinn has thrown his first pass in a pre-season game. It’s clear that Edwards isn’t a Frye fan and may never have been. But the truth is that Edwards is an Edwards fan first and foremost and he undoubtedly sees it in his self-interest to trumpet the arrival of Quinn if only for the belief that Quinn may be able to get the ball to Edwards more frequently than Frye.

Frye has many flaws, but attacking his pedigree as the basis for them is just more of Edwards talking first and thinking second. Frye is from the University of Akron, which is certainly not in the Big Ten. But it is in the MAC, a conference with a knack of producing NFL-caliber quarterbacks like Chad Pennington, Byron Leftwich and Ben Roethlisberger, among others. So it is not as if Frye was plying his trade at Ohio Weslyan. And while the Big Ten and major independents play, generally, a tougher schedule than any MAC team, their schedules often overlap. Moreover, it’s not as if coming from the Big Ten or Notre Dame offers any greater chance of success in the NFL either. There have been dozens of wash outs at quarterback from virtually every kind of school and conference. Look at the starting quarterbacks in this year’s college National Championship Game. One quarterback, the Heisman Trophy winner, wasn’t drafted until the 5th round and the other went undrafted.

While it may be politically astute for Edwards to build a relationship with Quinn given how Edwards trashed his relationship with Frye for good during last year’s Cincinnati game, Edwards wasn’t nearly as astute when he also tossed a few bricks at Crennel, even if Crennel isn’t in it for the long run, either.

Of Crennel he said “I think Charlie Frye and Romeo Crennel are in similar situations. The reason I say that is they both got thrown in situations where it wasn't fair to assess them at that point, especially Romeo Crennel. You give him a team that is starving at different positions, it’s starving for an identity or even a framework. Now that we have the frame, now that we have what we believe to be our identity, now you can begin to assess this man. This is the year that you can look and assess his game.”

It’s rather nice when one who has accomplished so little himself is putting his head coach under the microscope. Crennel has his faults, many of which have been chronicled here and elsewhere. But the man is not lacking in accomplishments even if what made him accomplished is what prevents him from being a good head coach. Wherever one falls on the Crennel question, this much is certain, a player like Edwards who consistently over promises and under delivers should be the last one to call him out, particularly since Edwards is one of those who will help make or ultimately break Crennel’s career in Cleveland.

This off-season, both General Manager Phil Savage and Owner Randy Lerner have said that Edwards will be fine, that he learned a lot from his several outbursts last season and that he really is a good teammate. Maybe that was said in a preemptive way in order to get Edwards back on the reservation. If it was, then it worked, but only to a degree. The gestures Edwards made in being a good citizen this past week do go a long way to building a better relationship with the fans, something he sorely needs. But his takes on Crennel and Frye clearly underscore that Edwards hasn’t gotten the message completely and likely never will. The indifference toward his teammates that caused Edwards to be late for several meetings and to act like a petulant child for all to see during the Cincinnati game is still on display for all to see or hear, or at least for those with a satellite radio.

In many ways, the fact that Edwards isn’t afraid to speak his mind is a positive because it makes excellent fodder for columns like these. But for the Browns and their fans, that’s really the last thing they need. While this may not be a make or break season for the franchise, it’s close. And with all of the good will coming out of the draft last month, the last thing that anyone needed was for Edwards to continue to drop turds in the punchbowl.